Heroes Every Child Should Know eBook

Then he smote a second time with the sword, this time
upon the marble steps. Loud rang the steel, but
neither brake nor splintered. Then Roland began
to bemoan himself, “O my good Durendal,”
he said, “how bright and clear thou art, shining
as shines the sun! Well I mind me of the day
when a voice that seemed to come from heaven bade
King Charles give thee to a valiant captain; and forthwith
the good King girded it on my side. Many a land
have I conquered with thee for him, and now how great
is my grief! Can I die and leave thee to be handled
by some heathen?” And the third time he smote
a rock with it. Loud rang the steel, but it brake
not, bounding back as though it would rise to the
sky. And when Count Roland saw that he could
not break the sword, he spake again but with more content
in his heart. “O Durendal,” he said,
“a fair sword art thou, and holy as fair.
There are holy relics in thy hilt, relics of St. Peter
and St. Denis and St. Basil. These heathen shall
never possess thee; nor shalt thou be held but by
a Christian hand.”

And now Roland knew that death was very near to him.
He laid himself down with his head upon the grass
putting under him his horn and his sword, with his
face turned towards the heathen foe. Ask you why
he did so? To shew, forsooth, to Charlemagne
and the men of France that he died in the midst of
victory. This done he made a loud confession
of his sins, stretching his hand to heaven. “Forgive
me, Lord,” he cried, “my sins, little
and great, all that I have committed since the day
of my birth to this hour in which I am stricken to
death.” So he prayed; and, as he lay, he
thought of many things, of the countries which he
had conquered, and of his dear Fatherland France,
and of his kinsfolk, and of the good King Charles.
Nor, as he thought, could he keep himself from sighs
and tears; yet one thing he remembered beyond all
others—­to pray for forgiveness of his sins.
“O Lord,” he said, “Who art the God
of truth, and didst save Daniel Thy prophet from the
lions, do Thou save my soul and defend it against
all perils!” So speaking he raised his right
hand, with the gauntlet yet upon it, to the sky, and
his head fell back upon his arm and the angels carried
him to heaven. So died the great Count Roland.

CHAPTER X

KING ALFRED

We now come to the great King Alfred, the best and
greatest of all English Kings. We know quite
enough of his history to be able to say that he really
deserves to be so called, though I must warn you that,
just because he left so great a name behind him, people
have been fond of attributing to him things which
really belonged to others. Thus you may sometimes
see nearly all English laws and customs attributed
to Alfred, as if he had invented them all for himself.
You will sometimes hear that Alfred founded Trial by
Jury, divided England into Counties, and did all kinds
of other things. Now the real truth is that the
roots and beginnings of most of these things are very
much older than the time of Alfred, while the particular
forms in which we have them now are very much later.
But people have a way of fancying that everything
must have been invented by some particular man, and
as Alfred was more famous than anybody else, they
hit upon Alfred as the most likely person to have
invented them.